Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan - Gateway to the North

Gateway To The North - Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan [2020]

"It is an endeavour to provide a balanced town in which the motor car has certain privileges, public transport has certain privileges and people, perhaps most of all, have the privilege of walking about in in safety from their homes, as far as the children are concerned, to their schools and the parents to their... (audio dubbed out/washed out to oblivion but I've pieced the missing bit together) ... social facilities, to the shopping centre and so on"

This was the first thing WRNTDP did, a year before the debut album, and a great synchronicity of sound and vision it was. If you thought his music was a bit, you know, BOC-ish, well his very first video featured footage from the actual Film Board Of Canada where the two great Scots got their name.

Runcorn New Town [1974]

Here's the 1974 documentary from the Film Board Of Canada. The town planners and social engineers are at pains to deny any sort of utopianism going on.  

Check out the proto-hauntological closing credit music at 37:32. It's eerily dystopian with fx laden analogue synthesisers emitting a plethora of dark tones .

A Scarfolk Council Public Information Message

Just outside of the village is Lower Frontbottom. 

Don't forget children are dangerous.  

72 diseases.

Remember never accept sweets, cigarettes or alcohol from a child.

For further information please reread.

The View From Halton Castle - Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan [2023]

The funny thing is when Colin added guitar to his usual synthetic formula he created his best record. It's a-shame then that it was only an EP. I'm sure I'm not the only one waiting for him to head in this direction again on a future recording.

The chic double exposures and kaleidoscopic fx make this video pretty psychedelic and once again he's using footage from the Film Board Of Canada Runcorn New Town documentary to great affect.

Open Green Spaces - Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan [2025]

The true sound of the new towns where the idealogical utopian optimism sours and the green belt becomes just as bleak and brutal as the urban spaces of the derelict old town. The sound of where the darkest shit happens and the safety you were sold becomes a lie. It's grim up north.